Review: The Galaxy Note 3 is big—and it pulls some benchmark shenanigans

Big is back! The pocket-filling Galaxy Note returns with a third iteration, and Samsung has one-upped just about every item on the Note II spec sheet with this sequel. While we see the return of the 2.3Ghz Snapdragon 800, the benchmarks aren't just a carbon copy of what we saw with LG's G2, thanks to some odd CPU governor settings.

Specifically, Samsung appears to be giving preferential treatment to benchmarking apps. Through some testing, we've found the CPU runs in a special high-power mode whenever a popular benchmark app is loaded. But before we get into that, let's talk about the device itself. The Note 3 is Samsung's "everything but the kitchen sink" product, so there's a ton to go over: the S-Pen, TouchWiz, multitasking, a new sub-pixel layout, USB 3.0, and of course, a screen the size of a small table.

Let's get the obvious out of the way—the phone is big as hell. The size of the Note family has always been extremely polarizing, and the Note 3 is no exception. While showing it to friends and family, it got reactions ranging from "joke-big" and "Zack Morris" to instant gadget lust. The Note 3 is also quite the attention getter—whenever I take it out in public, a few people always come up and ask what it is. We'd advise against buying a big device like this sight-unseen. Either go experience it in a store, ask a friend, or (apparently) approach a stranger (at your own risk). The bottom line is that you should be familiar with the size of the Note 3 before diving in.

Display

It may seem impossible, but the screen on the Note 3 has gotten even bigger. It's up to a whopping 5.7 inches, 0.2 inches bigger than the Note II. The good news is that the extra screen space doesn't come at the cost of a larger device. Samsung found room by slimming down the bezels. While the LG G2 is still the tiny-bezel champ, it's nice to see Samsung improving here. Ultimately, the bigger screen makes the phone look even bigger, which is either really awesome or really not awesome depending on which side of the is-it-too-big debate you fall on.

The screen resolution has been boosted up to 1920×1080, and it still uses Samsung's hyper-saturated AMOLED technology. The subpixel layout isn't a normal RGB stripe, but it's not an RGBG Pentile either. It uses something Samsung calls "Diamond Pixels," a new sub pixel layout that debuted in the Galaxy S4. This new layout alternates a row of large, diamond-shaped red and blue pixels (hence the name) with a row of tiny green pixels. You can see a macro shot of this layout on the right.

The negatives of Pentile still remain. There are still 33 percent fewer subpixels when compared to a full-matrix display. The Note 3 display is definitely not as nice as something like the HTC One, which has a better subpixel layout and a higher pixel density (468 PPI for the One versus 386 PPI for the Note 3), but it's not completely outclassed either. There is still some checkerboarding on sharp edges from the missing subpixels. In the right image you can see how the checkerboard pattern shows up in the search app. The pixels are so small now, though, that this is very hard to notice.

Design

This time around, Samsung has opted to cover the back in a plastic faux-leather with pretend stitching around the perimeter. It sounds ridiculous, but it actually looks great. Along with the stylus, it really has a "Moleskin Notebook" vibe going. It doesn't feel like leather at all; it's just a textured soft-touch plastic. It's a step up from Samsung's usual glossy plastic, but the design here is still disappointing when compared to the HTC One, Nexus 4, or anything Apple has made in the last two years.

The S-Pen is still here, too. While Samsung is clearly trying to ditch the "cheap-plastic" feeling on the exterior of the phone, it hasn't done anything to help the feel of the S-Pen. It's made out of the chintziest plastic imaginable. It's so light that it feels disposable, like something you're supposed to throw out after every use. I would have preferred something closer to the nice heft of a metal pen, but this is basically a hollow plastic tube with a button on it. It just seems odd using your $700 device with a 25-cent pen.

Enlarge/ The button layout. The capacitive buttons now work with the S-Pen.

Samsung has changed a few things about the S-Pen functionality, the most significant of which is that the Back and Menu buttons can now be used with the stylus. On the Note II, you had to use your fingers, but it's still a bit of a silly problem to try to use the clicky home button with the S-Pen. Trying to impart force through the pen and into the button is awkward, but Samsung seems more concerned with a consistent button layout across devices than choosing a more appropriate all-capacitive button layout.

The buttons now have so many functions that they're often hard to keep straight. For the home button, a single tap goes home, a long press opens recent apps, a double tap opens S Voice, and a single tap while already on the home screen will open "My Magazine," a branded version of Flipboard. A single press of Back will, of course, go back, and a long press will open the split screen app drawer. A long press on Menu will open Samsung's search app. Got that?

The overall shape of the phone has been squared up when compared to the Note II. It's now a simple, effective rectangle with chrome accents. It looks great, and it's a welcome return to sanity after the weird "pebble shape" of the Galaxy S III. Rather than the traditional smooth faux chrome ring, Samsung opted for one with grooves that provide for a better grip. I'm always a little nervous holding the Note 3 because it's so huge, so anything that will make it easier to hold is nice to have.

There's nothing too out of the ordinary along the sides—a power button on the right and volume buttons on the left. One of the most irritating things about TouchWiz is that Samsung disables the power + volume down key combination for taking screenshots. The only way to save a screenshot is to swipe your whole palm across the screen and hope that it doesn't trigger any touch events or gestures. This may be more of a problem for journalists than anyone else, but journalists are people, too.

The top houses a headphone jack, noise canceling mic, and IR blaster. One detail I really like is the chrome ring around the headphone jack, where most devices just abruptly cut a hole and leave it at that. The IR jack can be used to control your home theater provided you download a third-party remote app, which is handy to have. Like the IR blasters on the G2, these work more like laser pointers than the wide beam of a traditional remote. You need to know where the IR receiver is on all your equipment and hit within a foot or two of that area. Lazily pointing the phone toward your TV and pressing buttons won't work.

The Note 3 has Samsung's trademark removable back and a MicroSD slot. The back cover has been made to be as thin as possible, so much so that first timers are usually afraid of breaking it. It's quite flimsy, and if you didn't realize the back was plastic before you took it off, you will definitely realize it afterward. Once the back is off, the 3200 mAh battery pops right out. With the cover removed, you can see several gold connectors around the top-left corner of the battery, which are no doubt for a forthcoming wireless charging back piece. Another interesting design touch is the layout of the SIM and MicroSD slot—they're stacked on top of each other! Who knew Samsung would opt to save board space like this on a phone this large?

Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron.amadeo@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo

Seems surprising that they wouldn't do more of an upgrade on the hardware size in the newest iteration. The benchmark tampering seems to be like they feel guilty about this. "It's better! We promise!" Only you know, it isn't.

Seems surprising that they wouldn't do more of an upgrade on the hardware size in the newest iteration. The benchmark tampering seems to be like they feel guilty about this. "It's better! We promise!" Only you know, it isn't.

My guess is that their own Exynos SoC's are just not ready with the newest Qualcomm LTE basebands. I'm not even sure they are available separate from their Snapdragon platforms yet. That's why Samsung had to go with Snapdragons in the Galaxy S3s for LTE markets and Exynos in 3g markets. So if that's true, then this *is* the fastest SoC they could of gone with.

Bit of a shame. Imagine when even during that short period of time the editor put the phone through its paces it behaved odd what can we expect during day to day usage ?Bodes ill in my opinion. Better to be patient until a sw update rectifies the issues. A lagging, stuttering or crashing phone is probably the very last thing I want to be nettled over the course of a day. Eek.

Though this does mean if you have a particular app you want to go really fast, you just rename it to Geekbench

Actually, that would be an acceptable way for Samsung to do this: have an editable whitelist of apps that get "no holds barred" performance, and pre-populate that list with benchmarking apps - but also let users add their own.

Hm. Do you guys think you could set up a few of your tests (e.g. the browsing time battery test) to run under the Geekbench name? I'm betting that the battery drain will be significant enough that it really highlights why they'd cheat on the benchmarks in this way.

I'm concerned about Gallery being so slow. Are we able to substitute Gallery with another app that acts as a photo browser/picture gallery until samsung fixes this issue? I've been using iphones for years and had planned on switching to note 3.

I own a Note 2. Of the legions of phones I have owned, it is by far my favorite. Two reasons: 1. Screen size. 2. Battery life. I find the only time I am inclined to compose with the digital pen is when I have imbibed too many an ale and am struck in a moment of a brilliant idea. Only, the realization the next day is that I have composed some half-drawn unreadable half-cursive abstract child's art without hope of interpretation.

Every review should include pictures of dumplings. They're certainly more appetizing than a spec monster from a manufacturer that feels necessary to cheat at benchmarks again (see Galaxy S4). And despite the specs, basic apps like the gallery run like a dog!

Ah well, at least they got rid of the glossy plastic - even if it was to replace it with cheesy fake stitching.

Our Wi-Fi Web browsing test continually cycles through webpages every 15 seconds until the phone dies. The screen stays on the whole time at 50 percent brightness, so these numbers are more akin to "screen on time" than "standby time."

I recently looked at a couple phones running android, and the screen brightness (power per inch^2) is not linear with brightness setting on the device so that 100% brightness is not 2x brighter than 50%. Furthermore, 50% brightness on different devices is quite different. This means that if you test at 50% brightness, you're basically letting the manufacturer decide how much power the screen is going to use. If they're honest, no problem, but given that they're already cheating ...

A more fair way to do the test would be to use a camera and a reference device. Then just adjust each device so that when you take a picture of it next to the reference the screen is equally bright.

I just can't bring myself to care about these benchmark issues. You are running a program that require the full capabilities of the device and Samsung unleashes the full capability of the device and this is an issue? No, tampering wiht the benchmark would be an issue, (dangerously) overclocking the device would be an issue, running the the device at full spec, not an issue IMO.

Those benchmarks are not for testing full capabilities, but normal capabilities. Skewing it like that doesn't reflect the performance users will encounter while using other applications.

I just can't bring myself to care about these benchmark issues. You are running a program that require the full capabilities of the device and Samsung unleashes the full capability of the device and this is an issue? No, tampering wiht the benchmark would be an issue, (dangerously) overclocking the device would be an issue, running the the device at full spec, not an issue IMO.

Even though iOS can multitask like OSX Apple limits it. I'm a bit jealous. This might be a good thing on the iPad but only if it's managed right. Several apps on the loose could bring an OS to a standstill.

Maybe the best solution outside of what Apple has already done is to allow multiple Apps on the screen but freeze/de-prioritize non-esstienal Apps in the background.

I just can't bring myself to care about these benchmark issues. You are running a program that require the full capabilities of the device and Samsung unleashes the full capability of the device and this is an issue? No, tampering wiht the benchmark would be an issue, (dangerously) overclocking the device would be an issue, running the the device at full spec, not an issue IMO.

The problem is that the benchmark clearly shows two phones with the same CPU performing differently on CPU tests. If you didn't know about the benchmark "tweak" you would assume that the Samsung phone performs better than the LG in all respects, buy it, and then find out it takes 5 minutes for the gallery to load.

In other words, the result of the benchmark is not at all indicative of the phone's normal performance.

If they really wanted it to be, they'd have a user-enabled option to turn off throttling and run all four cores at full speed all of the time. But I imagine that would make battery life even worse than it already is.

I'm concerned about Gallery being so slow. Are we able to substitute Gallery with another app that acts as a photo browser/picture gallery until samsung fixes this issue? I've been using iphones for years and had planned on switching to note 3.

Yes, any number of competent 3rd party gallery app will function just like the 1st party gallery, including acting as the default image viewer.I am currently using QuickPic, it's fast, feature complete, and Free free (no ads, no locked features, etc). I have probably used the default Gallery on my Galaxy S3 twice in the last 5 months that I have the device.

Any word on if Samsung has improved quality control enough to catch them before they leave the factory, instead of leaving consumers to breathlessly check via the several diagnostic apps available? (Or in the case of more hapless users, simply finding they bought a brick?)

The sad thing is, there are plenty of people dumb enough to buy this piece of shit. It seems each new flagship Samsung phone has more and more fail poured into it.

The sadder part is that most other Android device makers are screwing up worse, so Samsung seem to be the one-eyed man in Isle of the Blind.

I think Sony Mobile would beg to disagree. They're just as guilty of putting their own skin on top of Android, but it's quite minimal, their devices are relatively bloat free, and the hardware build quality is consistently decent.

I'm not a fan of phablets at all, but I'd take a Z1 Ultra over this atrocity any day.

lol, All the other sites seem to be praising it's battery life. As a Note 2 user, I can't imagine it being bad at all. Either way, a beast of a phone. Surely the best phone of 2013 like the Note 2 was for 2012.

I think Sony Mobile would beg to disagree. They're just as guilty of putting their own skin on top of Android, but it's quite minimal, their devices are relatively bloat free, and the hardware build quality is consistently decent.

I'm not a fan of phablets at all, but I'd take a Z1 Ultra over this atrocity any day.

Don't get me wrong, TouchWiz is probably the most atrocious UI overlay by any Android major vendor at this point in time.

However, the position of today's Samsung was built on a combination of good-enough devices, sensible pricing (as compared to, say, HTC), and hyper-marketing. Basically I was referring to the combined strength of everything (design, spec, pricing, marketing... etc) which Samsung got more right than the rest. Certainly Sony, Xiaomi, and some others are catching up, which I can only hope would continue to bring about better Android devices.